Global CIO: Hewlett-Packard And Oracle Layoffs Are Ugly But EssentialGlobal CIO: Hewlett-Packard And Oracle Layoffs Are Ugly But Essential

"How effective was HP's job-cutting strategy for its finances? The company did not give a specific figure on how much it has saved from the cuts, except to claim billions in annual savings. At the same time, it has paid out $5.05 billion in severance to the workers who were cut. I understand the need for a company to be profitable, but I wonder if part of that severance money could have been used instead to retrain some of the workers subject to losing their jobs."

Of course, O'Brien is free to write whatever he wants, and his column certainly offers some interesting details although I can't say I agree with his conclusions. But I've wanted to highlight that column because of the possibility that it reflects growing political sentiment for more government regulation of employer-employee relations: limits on layoffs, mandatory retraining irrespective of its utility, and other stultifying measures.

The Merc chose to bundle in more of the same with a second column, this one by Mike Cassidy and carrying the foreboding headline, "Let's not forget the former Sun workers now out of a job," in which Cassidy offers this pink-hued interpretation of Sun ex-CEO Jonathan Schwartz's exhortation that the Sun employees who get laid off by Oracle view it as the start of a new adventure:

"It will be an adventure, all right. Maybe more of an adventure than many want. And what are the second and third steps in the new adventure? Food stamps? Foreclosure?

"The truth is there is a disconnect in Silicon Valley between those who run the companies and those who work in them. It's not new or peculiar to Sun, but as we celebrate the valley's ability to lure the best and the brightest and to develop the technology of tomorrow, we sometimes lose sight of the working stiff. Or the working mother with a new baby. Or the loyal 50-something worker suddenly out of a job."

Sorry, Mike, but you can't have it both ways: either you can have reason to "celebrate the valley's ability to lure the best and the brightest," or you drop the schmaltz and say there's nothing special about the Bay Area, that it's just like everywhere else, and that just like everywhere else, companies come and go and jobs come and go and paychecks come and go and that's just how life is. But I don't think Mike wants a world like that—instead, he wants Schwartz and Sun founder Scott McNealy to dip into their own pockets to create a superfund for laid-off employees:

"If Schwartz and McNealy each chipped in $5 million, they'd still walk away with seven-figure packages, even after taxes. Not bad. And the fund would be big enough to give each laid-off Sun worker $10,000, if need be."

I wish one of these two weepy columnists would have done a little bit of digging to counterbalance their burst bubbles: how much shareholder equity has HP created in the past decade? How many employees and non-employee shareholders have been able to use that HP-created affluence to buy homes, send children to college, invest in their communities, buy cars, support Little League teams, and so forth? Or does that not count—is that just some claptrap like "the rich getting richer?"

Same with Oracle. Same with Sun. Why no talk of careers enhanced, promotions, inventions enabled, parterships fostered, dreams realized? Why does O'Brien gloss over the fact that HP's workforce tripled in size in the past 10 years while he dotes on the layoffs the company made during that time?

I'll tell you why. It's not because they really feel bad for those laid-off HP and Sun employees, because if they did, they'd be crowing about the Adopt-A-Displaced-HP/Sun Empoyee website they'd just set up.

Rather, I think their motivation was to strike another blow for The Little Man in his righteous struggle against the amoral and ruthless forces of money-grubbing Big Business and the rapacious CEO-leeches who run them.

But I hope we all stop and breathe a few times before we light our torches and join these crusaders marching in the streets for employement "fairness" because that is surely the way to ruin for one of the greatest job-creating and wealth-creating industries the world has ever known.

RECOMMENDED READING: Global CIO: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's Top 10 Reasons For Buying Sun Global CIO: Oracle-Sun A Bad Deal? Only A Fool Would Say That Global CIO: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison On The Future Of IT Global CIO: Oracle Dumps HP After Co-Creating 'Most Successful Introduction Ever' Global CIO: An Open Letter To Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd Global CIO: An Open Letter To Oracle CEO Larry Ellison Global CIO: The Top 10 CIO Issues For 2010 Bob Evans is senior VP and director of information's Global CIO unit.

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